Monsignor Georg Gänswein, "Gorgeous George" turns 55

Happy Birthday,Gorgeous Georg!


Monsignor Georg Gänswein, the personal secretary of Pope Benedict XVI , turns 55. When I took this photo of him in May, I understood why they call him "gorgeous!"

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/homepage/vaticano/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/georg-ganswein-6395/

Wordless Wednesday - Sun Bathing

Foto Friday...of flowers, sunsets and poetry

Peace... is seeing a sunset, and knowing Who to thank

~~~

Have a lovely weekend!

Sometimes Wisdom Requires Judgmentalism and Intolerance.

The Welcome Closing of the American Mind - Closed-mindedness, because “G. K. Chesterton said that the human mind is like the human mouth — both are meant to close down on something solid.”


Saw this on Facebook today. It's from a commencement address by Rev. Robert McTeigue, S.J., a philosophy professor and director of discernment at Ave Maria University. So often today the buzzwords are "tolerance," "compassion" in an I'm OK, you're OK world of moral relativism where there is no recognition of Truth.

Judgmentalism, because we have to know the difference between good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly. We owe it to ourselves and the people around us, the communities we are in. “Yes, prejudice is wrong; but a well-honed and hard-won habit of good judgment is a hallmark of moral and intellectual maturity.” Seek good judgment.

And, finally, intolerance, because:

Socrates was intolerant of the Sophists. Moses was intolerant of Pharaoh. Jesus was intolerant of the Pharisees. Frederick Douglass was intolerant of slavery. Blessed Rupert Mayer was intolerant of the Nazis. Blessed Mother Teresa was intolerant of abortion. Blessed Pope John Paul was intolerant of the culture of death. Intolerance can be a beautiful thing — you just need to know how to do it properly.

This does not mean a refusal to listen. This does not mean you’re always right. But it is an affirmation that there is truth out there, within your grasp. With a little humility and confidence, and a rootedness in things eternal and historic and cultural, with friends and teachers along the way, you can keep building a culture that seeks more for itself than watching Snooki and playing hooky. Perhaps you’ve heard about our culture of adolescence. You can lead us into something else. You can actually be discerning adults.

See the complete article by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online, HERE.

Wordless Wednesday - Ice Hockey

Foto Friday ~ Scenes from Early July

Scenes from early July.

This was the Ina Garten, Barefoot Countessa flag cake. My daughter loved decorating it.
Traditional bonfire for marshmellow roasting .
Adorned in red, white and blue, my daughter and her GrandDandy, my mother.

A table set for dinner with my Nana's sisters and my cousin visiting from out of town.

Loved noticing that a photo of my Nana is on the secretary behind me and right in the opening of the picture.

A lovely start to July.

God's Hand in the Latin Mass ~ My Video

The amount of "interference" with YouTube and Blogger that I have had trying to post this tells me something....

On 7/7/11, it will be the 4th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, the Holy Father's Motu Proprio liberating the Traditional Latin Mass.

For over 5 years now my family has been attending the Latin Mass every Sunday at a traditional, old, city Church 30 minutes from our home. We were told of this "blast from the past" Mass and, like a field trip, we went to honor the history of the Catholic faith....see the Mass the way the saints saw it.

We fell in love with it.

Five years later there are many families at this Mass, like us, with young children. I used to think that we came to this Mass, this parish, via our own stumbling, our own momentum. But lately I am realizing God's hand in it. Undoubtedly, the old guard prayed for us, they prayed for this Mass to have a future and for young men to take over for them at the altar, to serve. God provided.

Clearly I now see that God's hand was already preparing the Church for 7/7/07 when Pope Benedict would bring the Latin Mass back into the Catholic conversation. He had already filled St. Patrick's pews at this indult Mass in our Diocese. Dear friendships had been made. The new guard was put in place to watch...to be awed...to feel the call to train and to serve this Mass. Today it is their responsibility, my husband's and my 3 sons along with others to kneel at the foot of the altar and respond in Latin like generations before them. The old guard's prayers were answered and it's all God's doing, of course. Coincidence is not the word I would use, God's Providence is Extraordinary.
I liken God's work in our life to a quilt being pieced together. At the moment when He is stitching some incongruous patch we can't "see" how it's going to work out. Sometimes we wonder why this, Lord? It is only in hindsight, when we've moved away from the moment and can look on from a distance, that the work done is "seen" as surprisingly fitting, beautiful, the Artist's Work. Indeed it all does come together, to create something unique that attests to a Masterful Plan. His plan for us fills me with joy. If you follow my blog regularly you've seen the photos of my husband and sons on the altar before and know how moving that is to me. They are God's Witness and God's Knight.

Moved by the revelation of God's hand in this and the uniqueness of this moment in time when the Latin Mass is in a hopeful resurgence...I felt a need to capture that in words and pictures. To archive the beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass at our parish, and with the permission of our priests, I have been photographing scenes from these years. Recently I felt called to compile them into a "video" to share.

This is to share our joy, to thank the Holy Father and to hopefully spread the beauty of the Extraordinary Form of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Deo gratias.

Thank you, Holy Father, for the Motu Proprio - Summorum Pontificum encouraging the Traditional Latin Mass!

"What earlier generations held as sacred, REMAINS SACRED AND GREAT FOR US too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place."

-Pope Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ on earth, LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.

And where will the Holy Spirit lead us next? I pray to take His hand with trust.